by Greg Cain

There are thousands if not millions of people who have no religious faith, nor belief in God. As for me, without faith in God life would be meaningless. Passing moments of pleasure would be overwhelmed by the virulent, pervasive realities of evil, even if the momentary pleasure itself was good. Those who claim that there is no God have no joy but momentary joy, no zest but passing zest, no hope but for material possessions and physical pleasure, and no life but the moment. They exist from meal to meal, fix to fix and from lust to lust to satisfy the physical pleasures of existence and in the process miss the deep, abiding hope and knowledge that existence does not end here and now, but for good or ill, extends beyond the grave into infinity. There are two groups, the first group is lost while the second has hope. At the end of the day "the lost's" sole achievement is to have their names and an epitaph "immortalized" by a plaque upon a wall, upon a gravestone or in a Presidential library that on the scale of infinity will pass into nothingness, and the second group will have their names inscribed upon the Book of Life.

With all of their achievements, the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Chinese may have left magnificent legacies of man's achievement, but absent a justifying connection to eternity. Theirs are nothing more than dry bones examined by curious archeologists and gaping tourists. In the alternative, as one gazes upon the majesty of the universe, one cannot help but be struck by its immensity, grandeur, beauty and power. Even those who never observed the vast expanse of the Universe through the Hubble Space Telescope or other device, but in ancient times observed the stars and planets with the naked eye, concluded that only an intelligence of infinite proportions could have created the vast panoply of space and matter. At the other end of the observable universe, those who peer though electron microscopes to observe infinitely small particles cannot help but be filled with awe at the complexity and intricacy that forms the basis for life and existence. Yes, Einstein was right, there is a God.

But perverse and pathetic little creatures, we humans, made in the likeness of the Almighty Creator of the Universe, we fancy ourselves as His equal. We supplant Him with our imaginations and our creations. We investigate, even intrude upon His domain as we experiment with life; we custom design our offspring and clone ourselves in a vain attempt to achieve immortality; we make our own rules of morality disregarding those that He provided upon His mountain; and when we decide which child should live and which should die before they are born we call it "choice," and thus unmask our natural savagery.

For those who believe that there is no God, therefore no accountability, life is a "bowl of cherries" to be eaten, digested and eliminated. At their end, unbelievers are like dust blown away by wind that arises out of nowhere and to no place is destined to go. Alternatively, those who believe in God and are justified by His Grace face an infinite future of hope, joy, and fulfillment. And for all there will be a day of accountability, a judgment; and at that Judgment God's gaze will pierce directly into each person's being, making ones greatest achievements naught and reducing each to insignificant and miserable souls absent the Hope that arises out of God's infinite love for His fallen creation. It will be a day of rejoicing for the justified, and of eternal sorrow for the lost. Which will it be, Presidential library or Book of Life?